female sexuality

Study links sexual readiness to heart rate variability

(Newser) -
Women who experience sexual dysfunction or lack interest in sex altogether may want to check their heartbeat. A study of 72 women aged 18 to 39 linked their heart rate variability (HRV)—the variation in the time that lapses between one heartbeat and the next—to their overall sexual health,...
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In the cadaver of an 83-year-old. But critics aren't so sure

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A semi-retired Florida gynecologist says he's found the holy grail of female sexuality: the G spot. To make his discovery, Dr. Adam Ostrzenski went to Poland—which allows dissection of fresh cadavers, unlike the US—to do a postmortem exam on an 83-year-old woman. He found, he writes in...
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Bib:Love offers free sex to female students

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Free sex—a valuable service for women? Three business students in Germany say the answer is yes. The trio at the University of Mannheim have started a service called Bib:Love that offers free one-night stands to stressed-out female students, Der Spiegel reports. Their posters, which promise "Good Grades...
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For women, it's about half that: Study

(Newser) -
So maybe men don't really think about sex every seven seconds, as one famous study claimed a while back. Maybe they just think about it 18.6 times a day. And women think about it 9.9 times a day. A new study out of Ohio State University gave...
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Naked woman with vibrator too much for university officials

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You can forget about applying to Northwestern now. University officials have decided to drop the school's class on sexuality in the wake of the brouhaha that erupted after students watched a naked woman enjoying a vibrator, reports the Chicago Tribune . The demonstration was presented after class, and attendance was...
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Nervous systems shut down, making it harder to feel pain

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Orgasms are nice—so nice that, for women at least, they kinda make you invincible. Neuroscientists studied women pleasuring themselves while in MRI body scanners, to see what happens inside the brain during orgasm. They found that 30 different parts of the brain light up with pleasure so strong that...
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Stephen Fry says he was just 'taking a thought for a walk'

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He's baaaack. Actor and broadcaster Stephen Fry has returned to Twitter after he quit in a snit over the uproar triggered by his comments that women don't like sex because they don't "shag" in bushes. Fry declares he's neither an "antediluvian pig" or a "twatty prune,"...
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Stephen Fry's comments bear evolutionary examination

(Newser) -
Now that critics have landed on actor Stephen Fry's head like a ton of bricks for suggesting women hate sex because they don't often screw strange men in bushes, at least one Brit journalist is wondering, well, do women loathe sex? In fact, insists Steve Connor in the Independent , Fry...
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They meet the right woman, fall in love, then feel sexual desire

(Newser) -
'Late-life lesbians' are just women who were attracted to women all along but were too repressed to come out earlier, right? Not exactly, say researchers who have challenged conventional wisdom about sexual orientation with a study showing that women's capacity to feel attracted to other women can change significantly from...
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Promoting healthy sexual exploration is what really matters

(Newser) -
We should let 7-year-olds don skimpy bathing suit tops that give them the impression of having teeny boobs. Seriously, writes Laurie Penny for the Guardian , who would have loved to have a padded bra at that age, "if only to give an extra boost to the wodges of toilet...
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Study finds that the average sex life ends before 70

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The average person's sex life is history by the time they're 70, but "sexual life expectancy" can be extended if people stay in good health, a new study says. Researchers looked at surveys involving thousands of elderly people and found that older people in better health were nearly twice...
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Columnists debate how big of a backlash casual sex is getting

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The days of glorified casual sex are over…or are they? On the one hand, we haven’t seen Paris Hilton’s undies in years, raunchy Christina Aguilera married herself off and has been replaced by virginal Taylor Swift, and even “the fictional Carrie Bradshaw is wed and living...
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Don't listen to the Brits on sex, physicians warn

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Yes, Virginia, there is a G-spot. That's what French docs want the world to know in a reminder that when it comes to sex, don't ask the British. UK scientists at Kings College recently declared that there was no proof that the female hyper-pleasure center exists. But French physicians declared...
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Not in the mood? Maybe one of these new drugs will help

(Newser) -
Good news for women with lagging libidos: The market for drugs and devices that stoke a woman’s desire is set to explode in the coming years. Vogue looks at some of the pills, shots, and jolts in development:

Some women may not realize arousal, research shows

(Newser) -
Not in the mood to get frisky tonight? Are you sure? A new study shows women may be turned on and not realize it—and the cause is linked to guilt. Researchers who looked at 132 studies carried out over 40 years found that some women, though showing clear physical...
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But comedy about docs treating 'hysterical' women is 'very discreet'

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In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play? Why, yes, it is about exactly that—but playwright Sarah Ruhl says that “a lot of it happens under a sheet,” making the comedy “very discreet.” The play, about a 19th-century doctor who treats female patients using a...
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But only if guys remember it's entertainment, not an educational tool

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Porn’s been getting a bad rap of late for turning men into bad lovers. But it’s really the guys’ fault, not the porn, writes Cord Jefferson . A Nielsen survey reports that a third of visitors to XXX websites are women, so clearly porn itself isn’t a definitive...
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With fertile days gone, women tend to like more feminine features, caring personalities

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Women have been on the pill for so long that its impact on their hormones may have significantly reduced their attraction to "manly men" in favor of more boyish males, say researchers. Forty years of contraception use could explain the change in Hollywood idols from tough guys like Jimmy...
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Psychologist discusses female sexuality, and what men can do to get ahead

(Newser) -
Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, authors of the 2007 study “Why Humans Have Sex,” have completed a second go-round, this time focused on women only. They come up with 237 reasons, and though they're not enumerated in the article, Time asks Buss for some highlights:

(Newser) -
Rest assured, Dear Reader: As a respectable organization, Newser won’t publish what Kathleen Deveny in Newsweek calls “the rudest, crudest, most taboo term in the English language.” To be blunt, on this issue we must punt, because, on a family website, that dog just won’t hunt—...
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